Dharmapuri bus burning: Apex court stays execution of three
By IANSFriday, January 28, 2011
NEW DELHI - The Supreme Court Friday stayed the execution of three people who were awarded death sentence in the 2000 Dharmapuri bus burning case where three students of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University were charred to death in the wake of an agitation by AIADMK activists.
In February 2000, three agriculture university girl students were burnt alive and several others sustained burns when the bus they were travelling in was set on fire by AIADMK activists protesting party chief J. Jayalalithaas conviction in the Kodaikanal Pleasant Stay Hotel unauthorised construction case.
In August 2010, the apex court bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice B.S. Chauhan upheld the death sentence awarded to the three people. But on Friday, it stayed their execution that the court had upheld.
A Chennai court had in February 2000 convicted and sentenced Jayalalithaa and four others to a one-year jail term each for legalising the unauthorised construction of the seven-storeyed Pleasant Stay Hotel at Kodaikanal when she was the chief minister 1991-96. This had triggered a statewide agitation.
